Blue Economy for Green Transformation
Blue Economy for Green Transformation
İzmir Kalkınma Ajansı (İZKA), established as Turkey's first development agency and committed to sustainable development in all its analyses, reports and studies, particularly in regional planning, shared its TRY 50 million Green and Blue Transformation Programme announced in October 2021 with the business community of EGİAD members.
Reducing the environmental pressure facing İzmir, increasing the region's competitiveness and ensuring that entrepreneurs and manufacturers internalize an approach that considers future generations in the use of natural resources, the guest at the meeting where evaluations were made to EGİAD regarding the Green and Blue Transformation Programme created for "sustainable production techniques" and "localization of sustainable production methods and equipment" was Sinem Toktay, Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Policies Unit at İZKA.
The online meeting held via Zoom was moderated by Prof. Dr. Fatih Dalkılıç, while the opening address was delivered by Alp Avni Yelkenbiçer, Chairman of EGİAD's Board of Directors.
The Future Blue Economy
Yelkenbiçer emphasized that they attach importance to the green deal and climate crisis issues in the context of sustainability as the period theme, stating: "We are creating very important content to move from theory to practice and take concrete steps with a webinar containing serious proposals that provide us both a roadmap and material support. There is no green without blue. To be environmentally friendly, first the blue—water—must be clean. If water is not clean, the world cannot be clean. It came to the fore while we were struggling with the mucilage problem, but we seem to have forgotten about it now, yet the EU's Environment Commissioner clearly stated this recently: green transformation is not possible without blue economy. The transition to a more sustainable, environmentally conscious economy can only happen with the support of the blue economy. In this context, I find the name and content of the İZKA programme very important. When we speak of blue economy, we should understand protecting the seas and living spaces in the seas. Of course, this also includes making fishing sustainable, meaning preventing illegal and overfishing. At the same time, transitioning to renewable, clean energy to reduce water pollution to a minimum is also within the scope of the blue economy. That is, producing energy by using the energy of seas and oceans. The EU will soon obtain a very significant portion of its energy needs from water because Europe has already been rapidly transitioning to a green economy with the Green Deal it signed at the end of 2019. Now, by further strengthening the blue economy, it will clearly take the transformation to another level."Green Transformation Important in Macroeconomic Goals
Yelkenbiçer emphasized that green transformation is given significant priority in macroeconomic goals, stating: "The 2022-2024 Medium-Term Programme, which covers Turkey's economy's 3-year strategies and was shared with the public in September, includes policies and measures related to green transformation in its macroeconomic goals. The subjects of supporting necessary technological developments for green transformation, promoting green Organized Industrial Zones (OIZ) and facilitating zero-waste practices were emphasized. In line with all these, as the business community, we are providing full support to the İZKA programme. I hope there will be applications to the programme from EGİAD members and we will be able to make announcements at events sharing these projects in the near future," he said. Sinem Toktay, Head of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Policies Unit at İZKA, began her presentation by providing detailed information on İzmir's characteristics and structural situation. Toktay, expressing that they will continue to provide support to companies in İzmir seeking assistance through various mechanisms in the coming periods, expressed the objective of the "Green and Blue Transformation Programme" as follows: "To implement pioneering, original and exemplary projects in the areas of Sustainable Production Techniques and Localization of Sustainable Production Methods and Equipment in order to reduce the environmental pressure facing the İzmir Region, increase economic resilience in the region and ensure that entrepreneurs and manufacturers internalize an approach that considers future generations in the use of natural resources." The processes of the project that entrepreneurs and manufacturers can apply for were explained in detail.Advertisement
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